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Saturday U comes to Jackson March 8

March 3, 2014 — Area residents have the opportunity to go back to college
for a day, with three professors from the University of Wyoming lecturing
Saturday, March 8, in Jackson for the spring term of Saturday University --
UW’s free one-day college education program.

Obamacare, contemporary artist prints in the American West
and solar homes are topics that will be discussed at the National Museum of
Wildlife Art in Jackson. The program is free and open to the public.

The half-day of college classes and discussion begins with
refreshments at 8:30 a.m., followed by a welcoming address at 8:45 a.m. The
guest lectures begin at 9 a.m.

In its sixth year, Saturday U is a collaborative program
that connects popular UW professors with lifelong learners. Offered six times a
year -- twice each in Jackson, Gillette and Sheridan -- Saturday U is sponsored
by the university, the UW Foundation and Wyoming Humanities Council, and is
presented locally by Central Wyoming College, National Museum of Wildlife Art
and Teton County Library Foundation.

Participants may attend one, two or all three lectures in
Jackson, plus the final luncheon and roundtable discussion at 12:30 p.m. The
program is free and open to the public.

Listed below are program topic descriptions from UW’s representatives:

9-10 a.m. -- “Obamacare: Where Do We Go From Here?” Mary
Burman, UW Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing dean. Now that the Affordable Care
Act (ACA) is law, how are matters shaping up, and are more people getting access
to medical attention?

Burman has, by necessity, been involved in the ACA’s rollout
at several levels. She provides up-to-the-moment insights to the current -- and
future -- state of health care reform and ongoing concerns about access to
health care, quality and cost.

10:15-11:15 a.m. -- “Make 100 of Them? The Contemporary
Artist Print in the American West,” Mark Ritchie, UW Department of Art
professor. Ritchie notes that the paintings of Thomas Moran and Albert
Bierstadt of the Tetons and other Western landscapes reached the larger
American populace through inexpensive works on paper prints.

Those images helped Americans see these places as valuable
and helped create the desire and political will to protect “wilderness” as
parks. Ritchie, an artist and printmaker, will discuss his own work and how he
sees himself as an artist living in the rural West and building on those
traditions.

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. -- “The Solar House, Then and Now,” Anthony
Denzer, UW Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering associate professor.
Denzer says the term “solar house” usually calls to mind the eccentric,
big-windowed architecture of the 1970s. But the solar house was a widely publicized
and popular phenomenon in the 1940s and ’50s, when architects and engineers
discovered the modern science of solar heating.

“Architects and engineers have successfully used solar
energy to reduce utility bills since the 1930s,” Denzer says. “The lessons
learned since then have improved and shaped our approach to building even today.”

The spring Saturday U term continues with the next program
in Gillette March 29.

Photo:
University of Wyoming School of Nursing Dean Mary Burman is among three
professors lecturing in Jackson Saturday, March 8, for the spring term of
Saturday University -- UW’s free one-day college education program. (UW Photo)